Battaglia brothers win 'The Amazing Race'

The Amazing Race itself took a month to complete. The celebration? That may run twice as long. Bates and Anthony Battaglia have a million dollars to split and countless memories after winning the 22nd edition of CBS's Amazing Race.

Bates, left, and Anthony Battaglia are the winners of the latest season of "The Amazing Race" on CBS.

Hockey brother Bates and Anthony Battaglia find out they must dress in traditional Scottish attire and play the bagpipes with the Royal Scot Bagpipers in order to receive the next clue.

Bates, left, and Anthony Battaglia are the winners of the latest season of "The Amazing Race" on CBS.
CBS

Bates and Anthony Battaglia have a million dollars to split and countless memories after winning the 22nd edition of CBS's Amazing Race. While the competition ended in the middle of December, the show's finale wasn't shown until Sunday night as the Battaglias hosted a viewing party at Lucky B's, the Glenwood South bar co-owned by Bates Battaglia and Mike Lombardo.

The party was spilling over into Monday when the free-spirited Battaglias, called the "Hockey Brothers" on the show, got together for an interview. Both played pro hockey and Bates Battaglia is a former Carolina Hurricanes forward, but they said it wasn't just their athleticism that was decisive in the Race.

"Yes, we're not just good-looking. We're smart," Bates said. "We're just friendly people but if we have to beat you in a foot race, we'll do it."

In the two-hour finale, Bates Battaglia put on the bulky mascot outfit of the Washington Nationals to catch a baseball dropped by Anthony, who was on a zip line high above the Nationals Park field in Washington. Bates needed just a couple of tries to make the catch. Another team needed 17 tries.

Told that one of the teams referred to them as "old athletes," Anthony replied, "They did? I didn't hear that. That's OK. We're still extremely good-looking. And we still won."

Bates Battaglia, 37, helped the Hurricanes reach the Stanley Cup final in 2002. Now retired from hockey, he played in more than 600 NHL regular-season and playoff game.

Anthony, 33, has never made it to the NHL. He played a handful of American Hockey League games but has spent most of his professional career in the East Coast Hockey League, a step below the AHL.

The Race was filmed from mid-November to mid-December, Bates said, and everyone was sworn to secrecy as to the outcome and the winners. Which, the brother said, was part of the fun.

"We like teasing people," Bates said. "Like every week I told people we were losing. And they'd come back and say, 'I thought you won.'"

During the Sunday telecast Bates Battaglia said losing out in the 2002 Cup final to the Detroit Red Wings was one of his biggest disappointments. The Canes won the first game, then dropped the last four to the powerful Wings.

Bates Battaglia recently said he missed the intense competition of pro hockey -- to the point he didn't attend many Canes games at PNC Arena.

"You sit up there watching all the boys playing and you wish you were out there," Battaglia said. "It's tough."

But the Race got his competitive juices flowing.

"It was awesome," he said. "I said to Anthony, 'If we ever get a chance to do it again, I'd do it in a heartbeat.'

Battaglia said the frantic pace of travel seen on the show's telecasts wasn't the product of good editing. It's as fast-paced as it appears as the teams were in such locales as Vietnam, Switzerland and New Zealand.

"Oh, yeah, nonstop," he said. "You have no time off in-between. You're going all the time.

"I lost 20 pounds. I left at 210 pounds and came back 190. It was an experience."

Battaglia laughed when told he now might be more recognizable for being on the show than as a former NHL player.

"I wasn't exactly a superstar in hockey," he said, laughing.

Battaglia said he now plays for the Lucky B's men's league team, saying he mostly "tries to give a lot of passes to the guys." He did take part in the Canes' recent Alumni Game at PNC Arena and was back on the ice with former teammates such as Ron Francis and Glen Wesley.

"I loved seeing some of the old guys that I hadn't seen in a while and getting the chance to get out there," he said. "A great experience."

The brothers joked they haven't decided how to spend the money, although invited half of Raleigh to the Lucky B's for a celebratory drink could eat up a few bucks.

They also quipped that they may try to encourage some TV folks to give them their own show.

"It's 'Battaglia & Battaglia,'" Bates said. "Handsome brothers do America! There will be lots of women and lots of drinking. Print that!"